


Sanctuary

by keiliss



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms
Genre: Elves in Modern Times, Friendship, Gen, M/M, Road Trip, Whales, all sorts of animals, following the map, lots of pictures, lots of small towns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-25
Updated: 2016-10-25
Packaged: 2018-08-24 08:51:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8366002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keiliss/pseuds/keiliss
Summary: It is the year 2017 and word has come from beyond the Sea: it is time for the last remaining Elves to sail. But not everyone has received the message. Erestor, Gil-galad and Elrond set out on a road trip to find Glorfindel, the missing elf.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was so much fun to write. If you read Snowed In, these people might look a bit familiar. Huge thanks to Binky, Red and Tal, and to Alex for giving us the OEAM Big Bang, and for adding a shorter option this year. 
> 
> The pictures were culled from various tourism sites. The cover is my own work, with major art beta from Red. Be gentle, it's the first thing I ever made bigger than an icon that has gone public. The Karoo Donkey Sanctuary is real, if you'd like to learn more about them I'll be happy to supply their web address. They always need donations!
> 
> Three more days and this would have been 20k. Almost did it!!

It was raining when Erestor left the British Museum. He had spent the morning enjoying the Egypt Underwater display of antiquities discovered beneath the sea off Alexandria and having a bit of private fun seeing how many things he could spot that he recognised – actual memories rather than pictures from books that looked a bit like things he recalled from the distant past. Mind, Alexandria wasn't that long ago as time was measured. He and Glory had lived in various parts of Egypt; Alexandria had been one of the later ones. 

He took the tube to Chelsea, a very nice area where he currently lived in the world's smallest one bedroomed, ground floor flat, an extravagance but it was near the water, which suited Erestor. He loved the river. When he let himself in he was trying to remember what they'd been doing the last time they'd lived in Alexandria and almost failed to notice the envelope on the mat. When he saw it he froze in the act of putting the keys on the little side table under the coat rack. 

It lay on the rich brown mat and stared up at him, all clean, stark white except for the old fashioned seal on the back, which was the part facing upwards. Even without bending down to pick it up, he knew that seal, could still read the glyphs easily – he had sealed enough formal letters with something similar long years ago in a different time and a place long since lost, even to legend. Carefully, as though it might bite, he picked it up. Solid black letters looked back at him, with his current name and the address set out in a tidy, slanting hand. Written by a professional, suggested the little voice in his head, the one that always had to get in on the act and analyse things.

He slit the letter open very carefully, not wanting to damage the pristine envelope or what might be inside. The contents proved to be a single sheet of heavy paper, rich cream in colour, with three neat lines in the same hand as on the envelope. There was no signature, but then there was no need of one. 

Finally pulling himself together, Erestor checked he had in fact remembered to double latch the door, took the note and went towards the kitchen. Half way there he changed his mind and veered off into the small living room instead where he poured himself a double tot of the first thing he got his hand to on the drinks trolley, which happened to be Gil’s very good Scotch. Taking the glass through to the kitchen he dropped two blocks of ice in it, a pretence at being civilised despite drinking at 2 in the afternoon, then sat down at the counter and took out his phone.

\-----o

"But how could you not know?" Erestor was frustrated, not sure he was being told the truth, and after downing half the whisky wasn't fussed with being diplomatic.

Across the Atlantic, Gil-galad's voice was clipped and firm, the way it sounded when he was trying not to lose his temper. "I don't know how I could not know. Maybe because I'm not psychic? They don't tell me everything either, you know that. I've complained about it often enough."

"Yes, but something this big?"

"Ery, if I knew I'd have told you, or at least hinted at it. How stupid do you think I am anyhow? No one told me. Maybe they thought I understood what 'one of these days' meant, which is what I last heard. Are you sure you got the date right?"

"Are you suggesting I can't read?" Erestor folded the note open on the kitchen counter and glared at it.

**_*Kindly present yourself at the collection point for the New Haven on or before November the 12th of this year, 2017._  
** **_Allowed luggage will be confined to one bag only. No food, seeds, pets, or electronics.  
**Financial compensation will only be discussed upon presentation of six months certified bank statements or share certificates. ***_**

The line was silent. Finally, Gil said, "You can't take your phone? How will you live?"

"Oh shut up, that's ridiculous. Well your Kindle will be staying behind too."

"Not when they find out how many books I need to take along."

"One bag only, remember."

"Not for me, trust me on this." Gil paused, thinking. "Why is it you have an invitation and I've heard nothing?"

"I don't know, Gil. Maybe they don't take investment bankers. Maybe they have too many former kings already. Maybe they’re included in there with seeds and food."

"You need to calm down."

"How can I calm down? We have to sail West. Now. Not sometime in the distant future. They're shutting it down and making us leave."

"Babes, you knew this was going to happen someday." Gil was trying, Erestor had to give him that, though he was probably more focused on who he would phone and demand answers from as soon as they finished talking.

"But not now!" He pulled his voice back down hastily. It sounded shrill. At some point he had finished the whisky without realising it. He went back into the living room and fetched the bottle.

"What’s the difference? Now, five years from now..."

"How about a hundred years from now? I'm - I'm not ready for this. I have a whole life here."

"Ery, in case you haven't noticed, so have I. Wrapping it all up and walking away wasn't front of mind for me either. And I need to get off the phone now and find out where my letter is. Why didn't it come with yours?"

"Because you're not here." Erestor was investigating the freezer for ice cream. "You're in bloody New York. And you won't be wrapping up your career, by the way."

On the other side of the Atlantic, Gil-galad frowned - he could hear it. "I won't?"

"No. Nothing that tidy. You'll just leave work on the evening of the 11th and plain not come back. Or more like the 8th - we still have to get there."

Gil was quiet for so long that Erestor thought they'd been cut off. Then he said, "Yes, of course. There’s not enough warning for anyone to extricate themselves naturally. That's pretty stupid. A whole bunch of people around the world suddenly vanish...."

"It won't matter," Erestor said. "We'll be gone. It won't matter what they think. I'd put money on a wide spread alien abduction theory, which is pretty funny because when you think about it, we're really the aliens."

"Aliens aren't fashionable these days. More like some grand conspiracy, creation of a worker force in some secret Illuminati city."

"They have cities?"

"Why not?"

Erestor drank deeply, stared at the glass. Apropos of nothing, a picture came into his mind, another time and place, a lot of whisky, another voice. "Gil?"

"I need to get off the phone. I'll call you later. Love you... What?"

The half-formed thought slid out of his mind, overtaken by very present irritation. "I hate those faceless bureaucrats on the other side of the Sea, even if they’re supposed to have our best interests at heart. According to you anyhow. I’ve never been so sure of that."

Gil-galad snorted. “I only say that when they come with some dumb suggestion that hits your buttons. You’re interesting when you’re all fired up. Right now, they’re not my favourite people in the world either – and it doesn't help that the odds are good I’m related to more than one of those faceless decision-makers.”

\-----o

“It’s ridiculous. Who will take my classes?”

To say Elrond was displeased would be an understatement. Erestor, on the grass in St James Park, threw a bread crust in the general direction of some ducks and leaned back against the tree. The weather was humid but cloudy, which meant it was warm without every square inch of space on the grass being overtaken. He had come down to have his lunch and watch the tourists and was already thinking of heading back when his phone went.

“Not sure who will do a lot of things,” he said. “You have to look at it like dropping dead, Gil says. People will just have to cope once they get over the shock.”

“Thank you, that’s cheerful.”

“Oh, we’re really into gallows humour right now. He won’t have time to close a deal he’s been working on for months, I’m in rehearsal for a production I’ll never see… it would have been nice if they’d asked us to vote on a date or something.”

“But why? I don’t understand.” Elrond was in Germany, teaching some New Age stuff about acupuncture and energy flow. He could as easily have taught conventional medicine but said it was too much trouble to get the fake papers and backstory together that he would need. Erestor understood that from long and sometimes bitter experience. 

“I was talking to Gildor last night. He thinks the political situation with terrorism rampant and economies falling apart has finally spooked them. Rather get us all back now than risk losing some of us to an airport attack or a hand-launched nuclear device.”

“I’ll take my chances, thank you very much. I haven’t needed a nursemaid for a very long time.”

“Don’t fight with me.” Erestor let the ducks have more bread. A nearby couple exclaimed about how cute they were and began snapping pictures. He successfully fought down the urge to ask if there were no ducks back where they came from. “I’m no happier than you are, but we haven’t a choice. Once they close the Straight Way, anyone left here will have no means of getting home.”

“Well is that such a bad thing?” He heard the click and flare of a lighter as Elrond lit a cigarette. “Think about it. We weren’t born there, it’s a completely strange place, why would we want to give up everything we know to go and live there?”

“Um, your parents are there? Don’t you want to see them again?”

He knew he’d made a mistake as he said it. Elrond seldom talked about his parents and most of it was less than glowing. 

“I was five years old when we were – separated. I hardly remember them. And it’s been so long, I doubt they remember much about me either. The most I feel there is curiosity. I remember my grandmother better than my mother, and my father barely at all – he was never home.”

“All right, calm down. All I meant was there’ll be people over there for most of us – you have Bri, and you’ve said you can sense that Elrohir’s already out of the Halls. We all have family or friends who left a long time ago, one way or another.”

Elrond huffed and subsided. “I wonder if they even have indoor plumbing.”

Erestor considered this in horror then shook his head. “Don’t be silly, if they didn’t your mother-in-law would refuse to leave, and according to Gil her big concern is getting her finances transferred.”

“And that’s another thing. I’m not sure I trust them with that. Comparative values, I was told. We have no way of judging; they’ll be sure and cheat us.”

“I think Gil understands how it works, he even tried to explain once but it was too much for me after a long day. Talk to him.”

“I suppose I’ll have to. Him or Galadriel, and of the two I’d rather go to him. No wish to let her know what I’m worth.”

“No, I can understand that.” He plucked at grass, trying to find the right way to ask the next question. “Dan all right with it?”

Elladan could be unpredictable, even more so without his brother to anchor him. “Oh, he’s off having one last party. I don’t expect to see him before we all meet up. He’ll go, of course. I know he always swore he wouldn’t, but I never took it seriously. His mother and brother are there.”

Erestor suspected Elrond was so used to not being obviously married that after all these centuries Celebrían was more dream than reality to him. They knew that she was alive but no one could confirm in what state that aliveness had left her. There were only two ways of dealing with that: fret or tune it out. “I think they have most of us nailed down that way,” he acknowledged. “People we belong with.”

“Gil eager to get over there, is he?” Elrond’s tone was sardonic. 

“Oh, hell, you know he isn’t, and he’s furious because I was notified before him. I said I thought it was to do with how long people had been here and he was only re-embodied and allowed to come back quite recently.”

“Did it wash?” Elrond asked in his ‘polite’ voice.

Erestor laughed briefly. “Not a lot, but he’s in New York so I didn’t have to hear too much about it. Someone had a very nasty earful from him though.”

“I suppose the test would be who do we know who found out first? If we’re going length of time over here, that would be Gildor or Galadriel, right?”

He thought about it. “Pretty much, yes, and Gildor knew for weeks already, just assumed Gil would have been told, High King in the East and all, so he didn’t contact me. I’m hardly going to ask Galadriel.”

“Get Gil to, she’s his aunt. Or is he still scared of her after all this time?”

“Don’t be mean, El.” He instinctively turned his head away as someone started photographing the ducks, with him in the frame. The world had grown small, the odds of showing up in someone’s old family photograph was one of his personal horrors – from experience he knew there was a limit to how convincing ‘Oh, that’s my great-uncle” could be made to sound.

“Still chicken, yes. I’d say try Glory, but he lost the whole of the second age and I suppose that counts.”

“I still would though, if I knew where he was.”

Elrond paused. “Doesn’t he usually keep in touch? You’re the one I always assume can track him down if he’s needed.”

Erestor frowned. “Yes, of course. I mean, we don’t share our every move, but there’s always a trail to follow. Anyhow I’m sure that wherever he is, they’ve let him know. They never seem to have much trouble finding any of us.”

The powers that kept the Straight Way open and stayed in touch with the elves still in Middle-earth were assumed to have a number of agents, elves sent back for this purpose, whose job it was to keep track of the thousands still scattered across the world and help when they were at last ready to sail or got in enough trouble that they had to be extricated in a hurry. They were called Angels with a certain degree of cynicism. On principle, they were not popular.

“I suppose so, yes.” Elrond sounded hesitant. “Got a place in Nice currently, doesn’t he?”

“No, he decided to move down to Madrid. France doesn’t feel comfortable right now, too many terror threats.”

Elrond made a sound of agreement. “Well, just keep an eye out for him. He always leaves everything to the last minute, lives in his own personal time zone. I have to go, I have a class. What’re you doing? Why can I hear street sounds?”

“Because St James Park is tiny so you don’t feel in the least like you’re in the country. I still have an hour and I’m making the most of it.”

“Bloody easy life.”

“Give acting a try some time,” Erestor said pleasantly. “You’ll go running back to your students whimpering and exhausted.”

“Doubt that. Well, till I do – say hello to Gil for me. And the blond, when you track him down.”

“He’ll show up,” Erestor said cheerfully. “There is going to be massive drama; neither of us would miss it for the world.”


	2. Chapter 2

“What do you mean, he’s missing?”

“I’m just telling you what she told me,” Gil said, gesturing with his phone before putting it down on the bedside table. “No one’s been able to find Glorfindel, including the Angels. He went to Madrid and then seems to have vanished.”

Erestor put down the script he’d been making notes on and stared. “That’s ridiculous. Has anyone thought of trying to phone him? Or email?”

“The phone gives that ‘not available at this time’ message, which could mean anything from it being switched off to he dropped it down the toilet, and she says she got Elrond to mail him and there was no reply.”

Erestor glared at him. “Why did she ask El? Has El even got his current address? Why didn’t she ask me?”

Gil-galad sank down onto the side of the bed with a sigh and began unbuttoning his shirt. “Ery, I was up at six, worked half the day on something that’s now pointless to me, flew back, lost five hours of my life… if you want to yell at someone, phone Aunty and take it out on her. I don’t know – maybe she didn’t think you’d have his current email address, maybe she feels awkward about my partner being that close to an ex...”

“Galadriel wouldn’t recognise feeling awkward if it bit her,” Erestor said tartly, flicking through his phone. “And everyone knows Glory and I stay in touch. It’s a lifetime’s habit almost. Not strange at all. We feel odd if we don’t. Why? Do you think it’s strange?” The phone rang seven times and diverted to voicemail.

“No, of course not,” Gil-galad said, maybe a bit too quickly. “You’re like family. You’ve explained that to me before. Many times. No reply?”

“No.” He messaged Glory on WhatsApp, just in case, then moved to email where he selected the third of the addresses he had under ‘Glorf’ and typed: _Where the fuck are you? Important!_ ‘Important’ was a key word between them; no matter how busy, pissed off or distracted, it demanded an immediate response. He tapped ‘send’ and put the phone on top of his notebook. “El wouldn’t have that address. And he likes space sometimes, he might not feel like replying.”

“But he’ll answer yours, yes. Do I have to shower? I feel wrecked.”

“Not if you don’t want to, but you’ll feel better if you do. You shouldn’t drink on the plane, it always hits twice as hard. He’ll answer that, if he doesn’t it means he’s out of internet range.” Erestor blinked. “Oh god, he might be. And cellphone too... Why don’t the Angels know where he is? That’s impossible.”

“Usually it’s nice when they mess up,” Gil said, getting up with another sigh and heading for the bathroom. “This time it’s just one more irritation to add to the list. Keep my side warm – I won’t be long.”

\-----o

It was an airless day in Siena, Italy. The doors to the patio outside the living room stood ajar, offering a view of elderly paving and pots of flowers in a riot of colours, but inside the blinds were drawn until the sun had passed around the side of the villa. Gil, Erestor, Elrond and Gildor sat on the floor in a semi-circle around a well-worn map of the world. 

Facing them sat Galadriel, straight backed, her eyes focusing on a point somewhere between Gil and Elrond, a yellow crystal on a chain hanging from her fingers. As always she looked expensive, elegant and well-bred in her apricot blouse and white cotton pants, her blonde hair in a roll at the back of her head. Erestor was never sure why just the sight of her still intimidated him, but there it was: he just knew she had taken one look at him – tight black jeans and t-shirt, hair up in a bun - and Judged. 

“Are you getting anything, Tanis?” Gildor asked at last. She was his cousin and he had never, so far as Erestor knew, been intimidated by her – or by anyone else for that matter. “I’m never sure about this. Will you still pick something up if he’s, you know, not with us any longer?” 

Erestor lined up words to flay him with for the suggestion, but Gil was ahead of him, just smoother. “If he was in the Halls they wouldn’t be asking us to find him, would they? They’d know where he was.”

“If you could be quiet, I might get somewhere,” Galadriel said, flicking Gildor an icy look. “You never had patience, it’s the main reason you can’t do this yourself.”

“I can dowse for water and metals?” Gildor said lazily. “In my experience that’s more useful than trying to find lost elves.”

“Shut up, Gildor,” Erestor and Elrond both said. 

For a minute Galadriel looked as though she might pack up her map and send them on their way, but then she subsided and held the crystal above the map, her hand almost unnaturally steady, and moved it slowly back and forth, starting at the Arctic Circle and working downwards. Erestor could have told her that was the last place they’d be likely to find Glorfindel: way too cold.

“South Africa.”

“What?”

“Where?”

Galadriel tapped the map impatiently. “South Africa. I knew I should have started at the bottom. Now I need to find a local map…” She gestured towards a low table on the other side of the room and Gil obediently got up and went to look through the maps stacked on it. “There’s a map of Africa, is that all right?” he asked.

She looked annoyed but nodded. “It’ll have to do. It used to be so easy to get a good variety of maps before.”

“That was back before Google Earth,” Elrond said reasonably.

Galadriel was unimpressed. “Instant gratification, all this electronic nonsense. And absolutely no use to us. I cannot dowse over a computer screen.”

“A tablet would be easier,” Gildor said under his breath. 

Gil kicked him in passing, shook out the map and put it down after removing the world map. He went back to sit next to Erestor, taking his hand and linking their fingers. He was good at sending non-verbal messages to his great-aunt, often in the form of reminders that yes, she might see it as an unsuitable liaison, but that was his business, no one else’s.

Galadriel focused on the yellow crystal again, moving her hand quickly towards the bottom of the map, then slowing down. As far as Erestor could see, she was somewhere in the region of Zambia. He had been to Southern Africa before, though not recently, and knew the geography.

The room was silent. Faint traffic sounds came from beyond the walled garden on the narrow, tree-lined street, birds were singing somewhere close by. Gildor was checking his phone; Erestor had no idea why he had come along if he was that bored.

Finally, Galadriel looked up, little lines of displeasure between her perfectly shaped eyebrows. “I can’t pinpoint him, objects and ordinary people are a lot easier to find than elves – our fëar sometimes resist it. The best I can do is tell you he’s somewhere in the Western Cape, just outside of Cape Town.” She concentrated a moment longer, then passed the pendant over to Gil who stared at it, perplexed. “You – or Erestor - will have to try and guess where he’s likely to be. All you have to do is get reasonably close; when that happens, the stone will start to glow.”

Gil hastily dropped it into Erestor’s upturned hand. The stone lay smooth and impersonal in his palm, the silver chain pooled around it. Topaz, he thought. There was an energy in it that made him feel uneasy, itchy. “It’ll just glow when we get to the right town?” he asked. “We don’t have to do anything else, just get close enough? How close is close enough?”

Galadriel shrugged and got to her feet after Elrond jumped up to offer her his hand. “I have no idea,” she said. “Fairly close. The entrance to a small town should be sufficient. If anything else comes to me, I’ll let Ereinion know.”

No one else ever called him Ereinion.

\-----o

The flight from Dusseldorf – there was no direct flight from Italy - was bumpy and unpleasant, but Gil had been criss-crossing the Atlantic regularly for the past six months and slept anyhow. Elrond did Sudoku puzzles and drank water. Erestor alternated between reading, watching movies, and worrying. The sense of being out of touch with Glory was unsettling: they were always able to find one another. Even though he was now with Gil, that knowledge still carried a bone deep sense of security. He rather wished Gildor had come along. For all the snide comments, he understood dowsing and would have been more use doing – whatever – with the crystal than they would. He was a good travelling companion too, but had been on his way to Eastern Europe to round up strays who were likely to ignore the call to sail unless he followed up and insisted. He took his network of relationships more seriously than most people gave him credit.

Cape Town airport when they finally arrived was like any airport anywhere. Erestor had read it had been awarded Best in Africa several times, which made him wonder about the rest of the continent. Elrond, for one of those incomprehensible reasons, attracted the interest of Customs and had his bags searched and his passport scrutinised. At some point in the chain none of them had strictly legal paperwork, but to the best of Erestor’s knowledge Elrond’s passport was quite genuine. Even so, he found he was holding his breath. 

Once they were through with all that and exited into the main concourse, Erestor dragged them into the first cellular phone network outlet and got them locally connected, despite Elrond pointing out there would be wifi at the hotel. There was more fuss as they tried to find the hotel shuttle, but finally Gil spotted a young man holding up a hotel sign, his full attention on a young lady in shorts, wearing a top Kim Kardashian would have approved. “Cape Grace?” he asked Erestor pointing. 

Erestor sighed, moving his shoulders around to try and ease the ache in the small of his back. “That would be us, yes. It’s a good start to a quest, isn’t it?” 

As if to underline the good start, when they left the building it was to discover that far from being ‘sunny South Africa’ as all the adverts claimed, the wind was out full force in Cape Town, and it was raining.

\-----o

The ride to the hotel was uneventful and took a little over half an hour. This was more than the website claimed, but in Erestor’s experience that was normal and had probably been timed when there was minimal traffic, possibly at midnight. They shared the shuttle with an American couple, who hammered the driver with questions, and two intense German ladies. Elrond got out his phone and began checking his email, Gil appeared to meditate. After a bit Erestor allowed himself to check his mail too, but there was still nothing from Glorfindel. He tried to focus on being annoyed rather than worried.

They clambered out at the hotel entrance and followed their luggage into the lobby. Erestor, sorting out booking details and passports became aware that Gil was staring at him. “What?”

“This looks expensive,” Gil said pleasantly. “How much is it costing me? I distinctly said book somewhere central, maybe three stars with breakfast. Four at a push.”

Erestor contrived to look puzzled. “Well, you usually want to stay somewhere central, secure, clean and with a restaurant? You know, the basics? And it had wonderful reviews on Trip Advisor. And all sorts of people have stayed here – the Clintons, Matt Damon, Oprah...”

“Which immediately suggested ‘reasonably priced’ to you, yes.”

“For heaven’s sake, Gil. It’s only money. Our situation gives a whole new meaning to the old line about not being able to take it with you.” Trying to deal with jetlag and getting Gil to hand over his passport was making Erestor impatient.

“Victoria and Albert Waterfront,” Elrond intoned smoothly, like an infomercial presenter. “Cape Town’s shopping and restaurant mecca. He showed restraint, Gil. I compared prices, and the One and Only would have set you back double.”

They both turned round to stare at him.

Elrond shrugged. “What? I Googled it in the shuttle and then followed the ‘nearby hotels’ links.”

“I did cut costs too,” Erestor said. “I got us a two bedroomed suite instead of two separate rooms. They had a special rate for stays of over four days, so I booked it for eight.”

Elrond was horrified. “I’m not sharing with you two, are you quite mad? What do you think this is - a buddy road trip movie?”

“Get over yourself,” Gil growled, still taking in the lobby. “Ery, get the rooms – _suite_ – organised. I need a shower and a drink. Not in that order.”

\-----o

“We need a car.”

Gil sat on the balcony overlooking the marina with a large brandy while Erestor curled up on the couch in the living room going through the brochures the hotel had thoughtfully provided – day excursions, things to do and see. He glanced up at Elrond who had come through fresh from the shower, towelling his hair dry. “We need a car, yes, but we just got here.”

“That’s all right.” Elrond found the mini bar and began exploring it. “We can decide where to look today and then tomorrow morning make an early start.”

Erestor was not and never had been a morning person. He pulled a face. “Yes, I suppose. Though I haven’t a clue where we start. It’s a bigger area than I realised. I’ve got too used to Europe – everything just down the road.” 

“The whole point of you being here is that you should be able to guess, I thought?” Elrond turned his attention to the coffee maker instead. “Coffee? Or are you keeping Gil company?”

Erestor shook his head. “It’s a little early for me, really. I don’t know why I’m meant to psychically know where Glory went. He wasn’t predictable when I was living with him and I doubt he’s improved since we split up.”

“Think of things that interest him, the kinds of places he’d try out when you went to a new country. This is all stuff you’d know better than anyone. Are those brochures? There must be something in one of them. How about a tourism website? Perhaps you could...”

Erestor slapped down the pamphlet on touring the winelands and glared. “Perhaps you’d like to go online yourself and see what you can find. Good choices would be natural beauty and animals. Which applies to everything I’ve looked at so far besides the ad for windsurfing lessons. Which he wouldn’t need.”

“I’ll go down to the lobby and find out about car hire,” Elrond said, retreating. “I suppose one of you will have to do the paperwork though. You’ve been in England; you’re used to driving on the left side of the road. I’d probably kill us all.”

“Oh my god, at last. You mean you’re not perfect after all?”

“Shut up, Erestor, and keep looking,” Elrond said tartly. “You said it yourself, we only have this suite booked for eight days. If we’re still here after that, Gil’s going to downgrade us to three stars so fast your head will spin.”

\-----o

The hotel had a large, soulless space it called the library, with chairs, tables, and even a few books. Its main attraction was free wifi. Gil had found a bar he liked, so Erestor was going through tourism sites and making notes while Elrond played Angry Birds on his phone.

“Shark cage diving. A lion park. A butterfly reserve – good grief. A couple of game lodges. Beaches. Mountains. Do you think the crystal would flicker if I showed it pictures on the internet?”

“Phone my mother-in-law and ask her. Or Gildor. He seems to know something about it.”

“He knows a bit about everything,” Erestor agreed. “Some bits are smaller than others. But he’ll just tell me to ask her. It wouldn’t work, would it?”

Elrond shook his head. “Not likely, no. Did you say shark cage diving?”

Erestor glared at him. “We are not here for a holiday so no, and I’m not giving Gil the details either. And Glory would never do that, he’d be too worried about the sharks being exploited and their territory invaded. “

Elrond looked up from the game. “Sharks don’t have emotions. Try watching Shark Month on Animal Planet. They...”

“We’re talking about the man who wouldn’t let me swim with the dolphins because it wasn’t ethical.”

“Dolphins seem to like people; I doubt they’d mind.”

“That’s what I said but he wasn’t having any.”

Elrond lost the level and swore at the phone. 

“Hush. This is a library. There’s hiking trails in the Outen... I can’t pronounce the name of this range. Okay, the Otter Trail. I can get my tongue round that.”

“You have a very talented tongue, I hear.”

Erestor rolled his eyes and turned his laptop round so Elrond could see. “You’ll never know, will you? Look. What do you think? Would he go hiking here?”

Elrond looked at pictures of mountains and trees and shady though difficult looking trails and shrugged. “Well, I might. Looks bracing. Would he come all this way to go hiking thought?”

Erestor, who was sitting on the floor in front of a low table, folded his arms on the edge and rested his chin on them with a sigh. “No. He would come here for whatever reason attracted him – some post on Facebook or appeal or because he’d accidentally fallen over an advert for something. And then he’d find other things that were also cool. You know what he’s like – attention span of a chicken, flits from one thing to the next. I swear he’s bipolar.”

“Elves aren’t bipolar,” Elrond said with authority. “Just easily distracted by the shiny.”

“If you say so.”

“I do. When we take on mental illness we don’t do anything tame like bipolar disorder. We go straight for batshit insane.”

Erestor thought about this. “You have something there – Fëanor, Maedhros, your great-grandfather...”

“Which one?”

“Both, probably. And then there’s...”

“Hermanus,” Gil said, dropping into the chair opposite him.

They looked at him, then at one another. Erestor shook his head briefly. “What?”

“It’s about two hours up the coast from here,” Gil said cheerfully. “Got talking to the guy next to me at the bar and he and the wife were there a week ago.”

“What am I missing here?” asked Elrond. He had been Gil-galad’s Herald, or chief organiser for things military, many Ages back and had long memories of half explained facts and expectations.

Erestor was more to the point. “Why?” 

“Well,” Gil said with the smile that had talked him out of more trouble than most people had seen hot dinners, “thing is, Carlos was saying we should go down this weekend for the whale festival. Apparently they come back to the bay there to have their babies and then make new babies and there’s a big festival and people go whale watching – no, I don’t know why, Ery. Don’t ask. But isn’t that the sort of thing he’d like? Fun, activity, music, animals in their natural state?”

“No idea what we needed you for, honey,” Elrond said to Erestor who was still staring at Gil, half outraged, half impressed. “All under control.”

“Oh shut up, Elrond,” Erestor said, opening Google again. “Her – what? How do you spell that? One ‘a’ or two? Oh don’t bother. I’ll just try ‘whale festival’.”


	3. Chapter 3

_“Hermanus,”_ Erestor read, _“the world's foremost land based whale watching destination, is a thriving holiday resort offering residents and holiday makers all modern amenities, yet retaining its fisherman's village charm. The popular resort town of Hermanus, situated between mountain and sea…”_

“It’s a pretty town, or would be if it wasn’t overrun with tourists,” said Elrond, who had just come back from taking a few photographs. 

“If I was a whale, I’d find another breeding ground,” Erestor agreed glumly.

“Where’s he gone?”

“Ice cream. He’s buying us ice cream. He said if I won’t go sit on the beach, at least he can get us ice cream.”

“Why won’t you go to the beach? There’s no wind. You just go through the town and around the curve there.” Elrond pointed to where the shoreline curved prettily round with the mountains rising behind it. “It looks a bit like Lindon, doesn’t it?”

“It doesn’t look in the slightest like anywhere I saw in Lindon and this damn stone is flat and dead. It doesn’t even sparkle like a normal topaz. Just – flat.” 

Erestor had taken the pendant out three times since they arrived and glared at it. He put it in his pocket again and leaned back on the bench. They were on the cliff path, an informal walkway that went along the edge of the sea with a steep drop down into the water or onto some serious rocks for the unwary. It would have been pleasant sitting there looking out over very blue sea stretching out to reach misty blue mountains on the far side of the bay were it not for the hordes of people trampling past with their binoculars and cameras, attention fully on the water where so far Erestor had not seen a single whale.

The town was quite small but with a lot of expensive looking shops and cutesy little signs pointing people to whale watching vantage points and places of interest like the ‘old fishing harbour’ which had been done up to attract the cameras – there was even a restaurant down there, in a cave, just like that place in Italy he’d had food poisoning from once. According to Elrond and Google there was also a ‘new harbour’, from which boats left to take the curious out onto the bay and within barely legal range of the southern right whales. 

They had driven out past the golf course and looked at the expensive houses near the main beach, even gone as far as the lagoon, but it was no use: the yellow gem gave no response. Which was why they were back in town, sitting on a bench beside a busy footpath.

“I got us all something called a boerevors roll – farmer’s sausage on a hotdog roll,” Gil announced, coming silently down the slope from the road behind them and bringing an odour of fried onions with him.

“I don’t understand you,” Erestor said. “The minute you get out of a suit it’s like a reversion to the wild. I can’t eat this. Where’s my ice cream?”

“It’ll fill you up,” Gil said firmly, pushing in between them when Erestor showed no sign of making space for him at the end of the bench. “Traditional food. Tastes even better than it smells too.” He took a bite to illustrate this.

Elrond sighed, put down his phone and delicately picked a few onions off to try first, then joined Gil. Erestor rolled his eyes and began nibbling along the edges of the bun, working his way in carefully.

“There’s a girl fire eater,” Gil said with his mouth full.

There was always a girl something or other. Erestor had learned not to react, he found out more that way. “Mm?”

“Oh, you’re eating it. Good. I knew you’d like it. Yes. She said if I was interested in seeing wild life outside of a game park, the best idea was to go back on the coast road and travel to Knysna.”

“Where?”

“Why?”

“Before you ask, I don’t know how you spell it, but I think it starts with a K. Nice holiday town, big lagoon, big forest, and – get this – the last of the Cape elephants. She said the British tried to wipe them out in the 19th century because the farmers said they were a pest and the few that survived hid so deep in the forest that hardly anyone gets to see them. The rangers don’t even know how many there are, but maybe no more than about ten?”

Erestor and Elrond looked at one another and then at Gil. “That’s Glory,” they said together. “Forest, tiny population of mysterious elephants,” Erestor went on, suddenly relieved. “The biggest problem will be getting him to leave. How do we get there, El?”

Elrond wiped his fingers on a paper napkin and tried to operate the phone with just his left hand. “Looks pretty straight forward, and a good road too, it says here.”

Erestor leaned over Gil to look. Gil angled the roll away from his hair and went on eating. As far as Erestor could see, he was pleased with himself. Two suggestions in two days -the only two suggestions. Elrond had found a series of very clear road maps with routes drawn in blue. Erestor frowned at unfamiliar place names, and then something drew his attention. “Look, there’s Agulhas. Down there.” 

“What’s that?” Elrond asked, looking to see where it was.

“It’s the southernmost tip of Africa, where the Indian and Atlantic oceans meet. There’s even a cute little lighthouse. How far is it? I want to go there.”

“That’s like beach,” Elrond said firmly. “This isn’t a holiday.”

“Good grief, there are beaches all over the world,” Erestor said. “There are even beaches in Aman – diamond sand or whatever, if you believe those stories. But there aren’t many places where two oceans meet. We’re going there first. That can’t be more than two hours.”

“It’s a complete waste of time,” Elrond insisted pulling his phone back.

Erestor looked hopefully at Gil. “No it’s not, it’s an important place and there’s probably an energy well too, or should be.” He had no idea if this were true, but Elrond was always intrigued by things like energy wells.

“How far is it?” Gil asked. “We can spare a few hours, Elrond. If it’s on our way, why not let him take a look.”

“Because it’s not really on our way. We’d have to go right off the national road to get down there and then drive all the way back...”

“We’ll live. Anyhow, you’re sitting in the back. I’m driving.”

Elrond gave Gil a dark look. “That’s the problem with going somewhere with a couple. You want to get laid so you always take his side, even though he said no to going to the beach.”

“Beaches are full of sand,” Erestor said, tucking into the sausage on a bun that was proving better than it looked. “And half of it would have found its way back into the car with us. I’m just being practical.”

A raucous sound drowned out anything else he might have said, so loud that he jumped. It was followed by someone shouting through a loud hailer. “What on earth?” Elrond asked, turning to look up at the road.

Gil –galad grinned. “Oh that’s the whale crier. We passed him down by the harbour? The noise means they’ve seen a whale.”

On cue, hopeful whale spotters came charging down the walkway towards the nearest path up to the road, which happened to be on the other side of their bench.

“The southern tip of Africa won’t be so bad, El,” Gil said cheerfully. “At least we won’t be at risk of being trampled there. Not sure about later though – just our luck, we’ll run into an elephant before we find Glory.”

\-----o

They walked around for a bit trying to remember where they’d left the car – it turned out Erestor was right, but he knew that – and it took even longer to get out of town on account of the traffic and people charging across the street following the sound of the whale crier, but eventually they were on the road. It was late morning, close to lunch, but Erestor supposed the sausage bun with the forgettable name was lunch. Gil had said they could go and see where oceans collide, pushing him to stop for a meal too might be taking it too far.

The car’s GPS refused to work, so Elrond was delegated to track their route online. He claimed he was a better map reader than Erestor, who was happy to watch the scenery pass and leave it to him. They went through formerly sleepy fishing spots with names like De Kelders, Gansbaai, and Franskraal, that were now cashing in on the whale watching aspect of the tourist trade. Elrond read out that there was a small but thriving art community growing up in De Kelders, which Erestor’s Dutch told him must mean ‘the caves’. His phone was charging so he made a note to look it up later. 

Agulhas was small, bare and windy. There was a lighthouse, more functional than cute but it was closed to the public till later in the afternoon. Elrond took photographs. Erestor also took a few with his cellphone and then went down to see the exact spot where the two oceans met. There was a stone monument with a plaque so he took a picture of that too. Elrond went to more trouble, framing it with a bit of sea in the background and tried unsuccessfully to get Erestor to pose for him. Erestor went down to look at the sea, which was pretty much the same as every other ocean view anywhere in the world. He wondered if one side was really warm and one cold but had no inclination to test this. The wind blew sand in his face and the sun was unpleasantly warm, but he had made so much fuss about coming here that he could hardly get back in the car yet.

Gil finally came over and put a sympathetic arm round his shoulders. “I got you a pamphlet about the lighthouse and a postcard with a good picture of it,” he said. “Think we can move on now? It’ll be almost dark by the time we reach Knysna and we still need to find somewhere to stay.”

“I just wanted to see it,” Erestor said with a sigh.

“I know, love. Sometimes we get what we ask for and it’s worth it, sometimes it’s – a bit underwhelming. Let’s go. You can drive for a bit if you want.”

Gil did not trust his driving. It was his way of saying he was sorry the southernmost tip wasn’t all Erestor had expected.

They shared the driving after that, swapping around every hour. The countryside was mainly sheep territory but there were mountains and occasional orchards. George was pretty, Mossel Bay looked like a good holiday spot for people on a budget, Sedgefield was surprisingly green. As they reached each town, Erestor hauled the pendant out and watched it, usually with Elrond leaning over from the back seat to see as well. Each time it stayed determinedly unaffected, but Erestor was less concerned now. Checking was just a precaution, he was sure they would find Glorfindel in Knysna. The man loved elephants almost as much as he loved a good mystery.

Which was why no one could quite believe it when they finally reached Knysna with just an hour of daylight left to them and found the pendant similarly unmoved by its surroundings.

Gil drove through to the middle of the town and found somewhere to park. They sat without speaking for a bit while after-work shoppers passed them and the rush hour traffic crept along.

“But he must be here,” Erestor said eventually. “Maybe I’m meant to be doing something with this stone, maybe I misunderstood her...?”

“We were all there,” Elrond said. “It’ll start shining when he’s near. She didn’t define what ‘near’ meant, but said it was probably when we reached a town? And we’re in the middle of this one.”

“Well, maybe we need to be closer. She was vague. Where would you go to look for elephants?” Gil asked. He was sitting back looking relaxed and not a bit worried. Erestor wanted to hit him.

“Elrond?”

“My battery’s about to die.”

“For god’s sake, use my charger.” Erestor’s solar-powered charger was an unfortunate shade of lime green. Elrond winced as he took it. 

There was silence in the back for a while and then Elrond said, “All right. You need to keep going straight for a while and then take a left when you get to – drive, Gil. Or did you just want a general direction and to look at a picture or two?”

Gil-galad turned right round to look at him, then turned back without saying a word and started the car. Erestor knew enough to keep very quiet and let Elrond dice with death alone.

Eventually, after they’d driven around for almost an hour and it was already dusk, Erestor started looking up accommodation, with the chain of the pendant looped around a finger in case it suddenly started flashing. It didn’t.

\-----0

They got rooms in a motel in amongst the trees on the edge of town; Erestor thought it would be quite pretty in daylight. The room was basic but clean, which was not something to be sneezed at. Elrond was down the passage in a space so small he swore he could barely turn around. When he started to complain, Gil reminded him that it could have been worse, they could have had to share. Dinner was KFC, the lesser of two evils, the other being McDonalds which Erestor did not regard as belonging to any of the known food groups.

“Do you think she could be wrong?”

Gil yawned. He lay behind Erestor, an arm draped about his waist. They had made sleepy couples love because it seemed wrong to waste a motel room, and should have been getting some sleep because tomorrow would be another early start. “Babes, my aunt has never been wrong. Why would she start now?”

“But she might have been. Maybe she meant the Eastern Cape. Or – or Swaziland. Or...”

“She meant the Western Cape, near Cape Town. All right? And we will find him. Stop worrying, go to sleep.”

Erestor sighed and obediently closed his eyes. The room was quiet, too quiet. All the worry he had been trying to suppress came crawling out to taunt him. There were six weeks left and then the elves would finally leave Arda for good, and they might well be sailing without Glorfindel – lost, alone….

“What’s wrong? You’re shivering.”

“I don’t know where to look next. He’ll be left behind, trapped here and not even realise it till he tries to get in touch with someone and finds we’re all gone.” Erestor turned to face him, burrowing in against warmth. 

Gil wrapped his arms around him. “Ery, we’ll work it out. Back in Cape Town, in that suite you think is so economical, with space to stretch out and a laptop instead of a phone – and decent wireless – and we’ll find what we missed first time round. You two were just so sure about whales and then elephants that we’ve not looked further.”

“Well, it was you who suggested whales and then elephants, we just...”

“You just said oh yes, that’s him.” 

“What if we don’t find anywhere else that says oh yes, that’s him? We don’t have all the time in the world anymore. There’s a deadline now. It’s like a death sentence.”

“Ery? Sleep.”

“But we...”

Gil sighed. “Ery, I love you but it’s enough now. It’s been a long, long day. We can worry about that next week if we still haven’t found him, but right now we need to sleep.”

\-----0

The trip back to Cape Town took almost six hours, not the four and a half that Google promised, because there was heavy traffic plus they agreed to stop for a proper lunch. They arrived in the middle of rush hour and spent an unbelievable time getting to the V & A Waterfront and the hotel parking. Gil was irritable and needed to be left alone to go for a walk. Erestor played games till it was time for dinner. He had no idea what Elrond was doing: he had gone into his room and closed the door firmly behind him. Perhaps he was Skyping with Dan. Perhaps he was reading photography hints and tips on some website. Or perhaps, like Gil, he just needed space.

At least the rain had passed and the sun was out. The view from the balcony of yachts moored on sparkling water became picture postcard perfect, even to Erestor who had enough experiences of sailing ships in his past to cordially loathe them.

Over the next two days Elrond got tickets to the cricket and spent a day at Newlands watching South Africa being destroyed by India, Gil went to look at the yacht basin and make friends, which ended in them having dinner at the Yacht Club with an Australian couple called Madge and Brian, and Erestor visited the aquarium and spent the rest of his time hunting down souvenirs that did not look as though they had been made in China. He had no idea why: he wouldn’t be able to take them to Aman. No one had any idea what to do next and no one wanted to admit it.

On the evening of the second day Galadriel phoned.

Erestor was lying on the bed going through a list titled _Top Ten Rooftop Bars_ on a useful site called Cape Town Magazine. He was in no mood for a bar, rooftop or other, but Gil was getting restless and they had not been together long enough for him to take something like that for granted. Elrond, with his usual uncanny intuition, came in the door from their shared balcony. “Did I hear you say ‘Aunt’?” he asked, sitting on the end of the bed.

Gil put his phone down and frowned. “Do you spend your time out there listening in case one of us says something interesting?”

Elrond looked hurt. “I just happened to hear you say that. She’s my mother-in-law, I naturally react to her name.”

“What, Aunt?” Gil asked.

Erestor looked up. “Whatever, Gil. What was that all about?”

“She says...”

“Why didn’t you bring that along last time? It’s easier than using a damn phone to follow maps,” Elrond cut in, pointing at Erestor’s tablet.

“Because it’s not going to help much without the hotel’s wireless. I’d need to get a data card or something and it felt like too much trouble. Sorry, Gil. She said what?”

Gil was over by the door staring out at the harbour and ignored him for a moment but he wasn’t much use at sulking and came back to join them on the bed. “She said it’s a royal name, English royalty. She thought something like Albert, but that’s probably because I told her the full name of the waterfront was the Victoria and Albert. So all you have to do is find a place with a name like that, and he should be there.”

Erestor started Googling, then handed the tablet to Elrond. “I haven’t a clue where your map is,” he said. “But that’s all we need now.”

Elrond pulled a face and started typing. “Hope so. Don’t know how many English royal names we’re likely to find. Might be hundreds. The Cape was under British rule for a couple of centuries.”

Erestor raised an eyebrow. “Believe it or not, I did read the history. Go on. Albert or something-like-Albert. How hard can it be?”

“Got it!”

“What?”

“Where?”

Elrond held the tablet just out of reach. “Oh no, you’ll mess with the map and I won’t find it again. Prince Alfred Hamlet. It’s about --- * He fed in new information. *-- under two hours from Cape Town.”

“What’s the attraction?” Gil asked. “More animals?”

Elrond took a bit longer this time, going into a site and reading. Eventually he looked up and shook his head. “Historical buildings. Very small place, you can ride round town on an open top bus and it takes about ten minutes. But there must have been something recently that we don’t know about. A festival of some kind maybe?”

“Local colour, you mean?” Erestor asked. “Yes, that might be it. Anyhow I don’t care why he’s there. I just want to find him, tell him what’s going on and kill him for not answering my email.”


	4. Chapter 4

They had dinner at a place called The Greenhouse, recommended and booked by the front desk. Even with the favourable exchange rate it wasn’t cheap, but the food was excellent and the setting was relaxing, almost country-like while still within the city. After they got back to the hotel they sat out on the balcony and drank Scotch and listened to the sea and to people having a good time – the Waterfront had excellent security and stayed busy till late. Erestor, the only one who had spent time exploring, loved it.

Next day they left mid-morning for Prince Alfred Hamlet, less than two hours’ drive from town according to Google. Erestor was learning to add an extra hour to Google’s optimistic timelines. The drive was pleasant, through countryside that had a lot of green to offer, with farmland and vineyards stretching to mountains that drew ever near around them. The air was cool and clean and Erestor was torn between the urge to get there and find Glory while still wishing there was time to stop and explore. They went inland, bypassing Paarl while he was still reading its history and stopped briefly in Worcester so that Elrond could buy cigarettes. Gil had wanted to complain about the car’s GPS not working, but that would take time so Elrond and Erestor both insisted it was hardly necessary in such a well-mapped area: all they needed was a phone.

And then somehow they took a wrong turn, only realising this when they passed a sign saying ‘Welcome to Tulbagh’.

“Didn’t you say we were going through a town called Ceres?” Gil asked, slowing down and then pulling to the side of the road. Erestor typed Tulbagh into Google while Elrond made disputing noises and tracked the route back to the pass.

“That’s not possible, we came through the pass and then went --- oh, we went left there, didn’t we?”

“As you told me to, yes,” Gil said politely.

“I meant my other left,” Elrond retorted. “I’m used to Germany. We drive on the other side of the road there.”

“You’ve lived in Germany for all of eight months this time,” Gil pointed out. “And I doubt the Germans have swapped left for right as directions since I was last there.”

“What now?” Erestor asked, still reading. “Tulbagh sounds like a nice place. We can’t stop and look around can we? Listen: _Travel back in time over 300 years... Tulbagh is the fourth oldest town in South Africa (after Cape Town, Stellenbosch and Swellendam) dating back to the early 1700s. Charming Church Street boasts the largest number of Cape Dutch, Edwardian and Victorian provincial heritage sites in one street in South Africa..._

“No, we can’t. We’ll end up spending the night again. If I have to pay for that hotel suite, we’re damn well going to use it. No, what we do here is turn round and go back the way we came. Unless our navigator has a shortcut that we can trust.”

It wasn’t that Gil was angry, strictly, but Erestor had noticed he was getting more and more short with Elrond as time passed. So much for the oft repeated rumours that they had a secret romance going back in the old days. Not that he ever believed them: Elrond had been way too happy to move out to Imladris. 

And if there was some history of a romance, one of them would have told him. Failing which, Gildor certainly would have said something when Erestor started seeing Gil. He had gone out of his way to try and convince Erestor it was a bad idea, on the grounds that Gil was terminally bad relationship material. 

Elrond consulted Google again. “No short cut, you have to go back to where the road forks and get on the R46 again. Then we follow that – the right way this time – through Ceres and we’ll be there. “

“Elf houses!” Erestor exclaimed. “Down there somewhere. Can we go look?”

Gil had already started the car. He gave Erestor a hard look. “Too much sun? Elf houses?”

“Yes. Look. It’s a place called Vindoux – they have tree houses. Do we know how long Glory’s been around here?”

“What’s your topaz saying?”

“Um...” Erestor hauled it out and dangled it up to the light. As usual, it did nothing. “No, well, I wasn’t expecting to look for him here, though it does seem like a nice town. I mean, tree houses? And no, he’s not here.”

“Unless he’s on the other side of town and out of range,” Elrond suggested. He liked to tweak things to see what people would do.

Erestor, who had known him a very long time, turned back and glared at him. “Can we go and see...?”

“No,” Gil said firmly. “You’ve seen tree houses before. You’ve even seen the originals in Lórien. I am not driving out of my way so you can peer at holiday accommodation from the road.”

“Gil...”

“No!”

Erestor was quiet.

Gil swore and pulled out from the side, almost side swiping a truck. “Oh for god’s sake, where is this place?”

“We can just take a quick look, then go back onto the national road.”

“I was not planning on stopping for tea.”

Erestor smiled and squinted at the map. “You keep going down here and take the second to your right....”

In the back seat Elrond huffed but sensibly kept his mouth shut.

\-----o

They had a look at the tree houses, which were somewhat bigger and more solidly built than a flet, and then drove back the way they had come. Elrond promised it wouldn’t take more than half an hour even with backtracking to the main road as Gil seemed to be driving a fair bit above the speed limit. No one said anything after that, least of all Erestor who knew asking to see the tree house accommodation had pushed Gil’s irritation level up at least three more notches. 

Prince Alfred Hamlet, when they reached it, was less a town than a place amongst the orchards and farmlands where old fashioned buildings clustered together along a main street and an ambitiously large church could be seen on the next block. They only knew for sure that they had arrived because there was a good-sized sign saying so. Erestor pulled out the pendant one last time and waited for it to do something. It stayed dull.

Even though there was no point, Erestor shook it. “Elrond, are you sure we’re in the right place?” he asked dubiously. “There’s nothing happening here.”

Gil glanced over at him frowning. “I’ll drive around but I don’t know if the place is big enough for that to make a difference.”

“Your aunt must be wrong,” Erestor flatly. It was the only thing that made sense and realising that did not help with the little thread of true fear that was starting to make itself known. Time was passing and there had still been no response to his email and his attempts at phoning had all met with the usual voicemail message. 

“Stop here a minute,” Elrond exclaimed. “It’s a perfect frame for a picture – village in the middle of nowhere. You get awards for that kind of shot.”

Gil braked abruptly, pulled in at the side of the road and got out the car, slamming the door behind him.

“God, I just wanted to take a bloody photograph,” Elrond said. He had let his window down, preparatory to leaning out but now he opened the door instead.

“It’s not you,” Erestor said, breathing the fear down out of sight. “At least it’s not JUST you. He’s gone into the shop.”

It was the kind of general store you found in country towns all over the world, rather run down, with boards advertising a wide range of things from Coke and milk to fresh vegetables and cellphone airtime. Elrond photographed the doll-sized town and then got back in the car. “That came out well, I got the mountain in the background and the wires over the street.”

“You’ll have to mark it ‘village of Prince Alfred Hamlet,” Erestor said drily. “You can’t tell it’s more than a bump in the road by looking. Do you know, it was named for Queen Victoria’s eldest son? It was founded shortly before he came out to the Cape for a visit.”

“Why was he visiting?” Elrond asked. “A long sea voyage back then wasn’t very safe. Or pleasant.”

“I have no idea,” Erestor said. “That’s all it says in Wiki.”

Gil came back out, pausing to shake hands with a middle aged man in shorts and a button down shirt who had walked to the entrance with him. He threw a couple of bags of crisps into the car then went round front and spread something out over the bonnet. Erestor and Elrond looked at each other then slowly got out to join him.

“Map,” he said. “Honest to god real paper map. Not that damn little window that shows you next to nothing and with a wide view that has hardly any detail. I’ve had enough. We’re doing this my way now.”

“You hate technology,” Erestor said accusingly.

Gil looked up from tracing the route back to Cape Town with his finger. “No, I don’t hate technology. I just think sometimes the old ways work a lot better, that’s all. Like maps. We’ve been spreading out maps for centuries. Why? Because they work.”

“But Gil, the ones in the phone are as maply as this is...”

“No they’re not, you need to know where you’re going before you bother with those. These – you use them to help you decide.”

“Don’t argue,” muttered Elrond.

“I’m not,” Erestor replied equally quietly. “It’s not like we have anything better to do right now.” 

“What did she say?” Gil asked suddenly. “The name of a British royal, right? And that it might be Albert, but we thought that was because I’d just told her we were staying at the Victoria and _Albert_ Waterfront. “

“And your point would be?” Elrond asked. It looked as though they might not be getting back in the car for a while so he lit a cigarette.

Gil tapped the map hard and beckoned them in. “Here, right here. What does it say?”

Erestor leaned past him and tried to make out the small lettering. “You can at least zoom in on a Google map if it’s too... oh my god.”

“Yes, but you also don’t see the bits you’re not deliberately looking at. Go on, what does that say, right there?”

“Prince Albert,” Erestor admitted after taking another look.

“Where?” asked Elrond, blowing a smoke ring. This would normally annoy Gil, which would in turn give Elrond the gap to mention how Gandalf had done it in the movies. They all knew that in real life Gandalf had never smoked.

This time Gil ignored him, just tapped the map again and straightened up, starting to fold it. “It’s simple. We go back on the same road and we keep on through Touws River and – what’s it called - Laingsburg. And then follow the road right to Prince Albert.

“And if it’s another false alarm?” Erestor asked. They would go from town to town for weeks and never find him. Then it would be time to sail, leaving him behind to fade and remain part of this world forever. Glory who had been born in Aman and would truly be going home. 

Gil rested a hand on his shoulder before getting back in the car. “We’re going to find him, Ery,” he said firmly. “Stop worrying, you’ll make yourself ill. He’s got to be out here somewhere, and now we have a real map it’ll be that much easier to track him down.

\-----o

They went through a pass after which the countryside grew flatter and the mountains stood green merging into blue against the sky on all sides. They were travelling through a valley, and valleys always made Erestor happy; Imladris was still, even after so long, the home he measured other homes against. No one talked. Elrond was going through his photographs, Erestor read about Ceres, which was a proper town, bigger than their other stops and would have been interesting if there had been time to look around. They were near Laingsburg when the flowers started, little spring daisies growing in ever increasing clusters on the side of the road and back over the uncultivated land. 

“I was reading about this back at the hotel,” Erestor said, turning around to speak to Elrond – Gil was ignoring them and focusing on his driving. “They get this massive burst of flowers this time of the year for about two months and then they’re gone for another year. People come from Europe just to see the wildflowers.”

It was a mistake. Elrond, who had been paying scant attention to the scenery, took a good look and straightened up. “Oh, this is good. Gil? Can we stop for a few minutes? I want to take a few shots of this.”

Gil said nothing, just sped up and overtook the dusty Jeep Cherokee travelling ahead of them. Erestor tapped his leg lightly and gestured with his eyes to Elrond in the back and to the passing scenery. Gil’s lips compressed and he seemed to have a bit of an internal battle. They rounded a curve in the road and the flowers spread out on both sides and up a small hill. With a sigh Erestor could actually see, he parked but left the engine running. “Don’t take all day,” he said. “This is not a smoke break.”

“I’ll just have a few puffs,” Elrond swore. “Not a whole one.”

He got out quickly before Gil could change his mind, jumped over a small ditch and went a short distance into the floral carpet. Gil sighed. Erestor leaned against him, head on his shoulder. “Just let him, otherwise he’ll get long suffering and he’s a pain when he’s like that.”

“When the hell did he get the photography bug? It’s been every single stop.”

“I know, but he’s having fun with it. Everyone needs some kind of a hobby. He has photography.”

“I don’t have time for a hobby,” Gil growled, but he put his arm round Erestor.

“Yes you do,” Erestor said smugly. “You have me.”

Elrond smoked an entire cigarette on the grounds, he explained, that it would have been inconsiderate to interrupt the making out that was going on in the car until he absolutely had to. Gil couldn’t say a word to that. Erestor just smiled.

\-----o

It took another hour to reach Prince Albert, by which stage it was already going on five in the afternoon and the sun was preparing to dip behind the mountains. As he fumbled in his pocket for the topaz, Erestor reminded himself to look up the name of the range. He held the crystal up by its chain and stared at it. Elrond leaned over the seat to watch. For a moment nothing happened and he thought it would be one more false lead and then his stomach lurched as, miraculously, the stone started to flicker almost as though there was a candle burning behind it.

“There,” Elrond exclaimed. “It’s doing – something.”

“She said it’d glow,” Erestor said dubiously. “She said nothing about it going on and off like this.”

“Maybe we’re not close enough?” Gil suggested, splitting his attention between the road and the pendant. Fortunately, Prince Albert wasn’t much larger than Prince Alfred Hamlet and traffic could hardly be termed heavy. There did seem more buildings though, more of a cohesive village effect of old Victorian houses rubbing shoulders with more modern structures. 

“Well, drive around. Places of interest, Res?” Elrond was looking out the window as though expecting at any moment to see a tall blond elf crossing the road.

Erestor looked down the page he had found on Prince Albert – the place, not the consort – and shook his head. _“Nestling beneath the Swartberg mountains_ – oh, is that what they’re called? - _lies the village of Prince Albert, possibly the prettiest small town in South Africa, with its Karoo style, Cape Dutch and Victorian houses lining quiet arboured streets, canals lead mountain water into the lush gardens of flowers and fruit trees, a veritable oasis…_ Nature reserves, hiking trails, a cooking school – odd that, star gazing, a cheese tour at – oh my god, look, there it is, Gay’s Dairy.” 

“I’m guessing that’s someone’s name, not people like us running a dairy,” Gil said grinning. The whole atmosphere in the car had lifted now they knew they were near the end of the search. 

“I’ll look it up later. There’s a theatre, a ghost walk - that should be interesting - wineries, a fig farm…. I have no idea, there’s nothing here that says Glory to me. El?” 

“If it was you, I’d take a look at the theatre, but for him – nothing really. I can see him passing through, staying a couple of days if something caught his eye, but then he’d move on. Wouldn’t he?” 

The topaz was glowing softly now, rather like a light bulb that needed to warm up. Gil drove in something like a circuit of the town and it no longer flickered at all, simply stayed unhelpfully constant. 

“I have no idea how to find him.” Erestor hoped he didn’t sound as sick as he felt. Everything about this was wrong and he was starting to feel that something bad might have happened to Glory and it would be his fault for not having made more effort to stay in touch. 

“What we need to do is find somewhere to stay, preferably one that serves dinner,” Elrond said, unexpectedly empathetic to his mood. “Once we’re settled we can work out the best way to search.” 

“I’ll accept technology is good for some things,” Gil said. “Top of the list right now is finding accommodation.” 

“Shouldn’t we drive around a bit more first?” Erestor asked, looking at the sky. He had no idea how early it would get dark out here. 

“No, we shouldn’t,” Gil said. “We should find somewhere to shower and eat and relax. We’ve been in this car most of the day. Give me options, is this place big enough for a hotel?” 

It seemed that Prince Albert was quite popular for hiking and other locally offered events and was handy to other places, so there was a decent selection of guest houses and bed and breakfast establishments. Elrond refused under any circumstances to share a room, despite there being several places offering a room with double bed plus one single, clearly aimed at families. There was a hotel, the Swartberg, which they agreed must mean Black Mountain, but Elrond and Erestor agreed it looked dreadful. Eventually they settled on a guest house that promised air conditioning, spacious bedrooms and wifi in a comfortable 19th century house. 

“I hope they’ve done a few renovations since then,” Elrond said gloomily. “Especially to the plumbing.” 

Gil followed directions and handed over his credit card without even asking what the rooms would cost. All he showed an interest in was a shower and where to find a decent dinner. 


	5. Chapter 5

The next morning was cloudy and the wind had a bite to it. After breakfast – Karoo-style for Gil and Elrond, which was like a full English breakfast with extras, scrambled eggs, toast and coffee for Erestor – they hit the streets of Prince Albert. Gil wanted them to stick together, but in the end they separated with an agreement to meet up in two hours at the Prince Albert Café, which they’d been told served good coffee. 

“Well you can’t very well go up to every door and knock and ask ‘have you seen this man?’ can you?” Gil asked two hours later, once they’d got their coffee. “We don’t even have a picture.”

“I do have a photograph of him,” Erestor snapped. The sun had come out after about an hour and it had grown unpleasantly hot and he was feeling discouraged. Also frustrated, because the topaz continued to glow cheerfully every time he took a look at it. “But it’s not a very good one so there’s not much point. He has his hair in a ponytail and a cap on.”

Gil put his cup down. “You’re walking round with a picture of Glorfindel in your phone?” 

“This cake’s not bad at all.” Elrond looked nonchalant, as though he was not deliberately and obviously trying to head trouble off at the pass. “You should have a slice, Res.”

“I don’t want cake,” Erestor said, despite having thought mere minutes earlier that Elrond’s cake looked good and he had rather a yen for chocolate. “I want to find that stupid git and get done.”

“Do you have photographs of a lot of people stored in your phone?” Gil had not been king for nearly four thousand years without learning to stick with a line of questioning. 

Erestor shoved his iPhone across the table and Gil almost missed stopping it from hitting the floor. “Go ahead. Take a look. There’s a lot of people in there, yes. You know most of them. Some of them are you. Some of them aren’t. Should I only take pictures of you?”

Elrond got up with a murmur and went back in to the café. 

“Don’t be bloody absurd. I just wondered what you collect in there, that’s all. If I had pictures of my exes in my phone….”

“They haven’t made a big enough memory card for that,” Erestor came back sharply.

“Oh yes, let’s go digging around in my past. Be my guest. If you can find one picture in my phone of…”

“Because you don’t keep in touch, you don’t stay friends, you just wave goodbye and move on.”

“Then what on earth are we talking about?”

“I don’t know! Oh, me, Glory, photograph.”

Elrond came back out with a slice of chocolate cake and what looked like a community newspaper. He put the plate down in front of Erestor. “Eat it. You need sugar. Don’t be an ass, Gil. My phone is full of pictures of friends. The only reason I don’t have one of Glory is that I back them up regularly and then clear my phone.”

“I don’t want cake.”

“Shut up for five minutes and eat it. It’s not Gil’s fault we haven’t found him, stop taking it out on him. That thing’s still glowing so he’s around here somewhere. I don’t think even my mother-in-law has perfected the art of turning up corpses.”

Erestor looked startled. Gil laughed and got up. “Think I’m getting a toasted cheese. It’s a while since breakfast.”

Elrond folded the paper back and began skimming it. Erestor hesitated then sampled the cake. It was homemade and tasted as good as it looked. The peace of the village slowly wound around him. He could hear people talking in what he assumed was Afrikaans, cars driving past, water flowing in a little canal along the side of the street. The sun was pleasantly warm now rather than hot and …. 

Elrond shoved the paper in front of him and pointed. “There.”

Erestor frowned, took another forkful of cake and leaned forward to read. Then he picked the paper up and read the little notice again.

_**FOSTER CARE** _

_Karoo Donkey Sanctuary rehomes outreach donkeys (Donkeys that we work with outside the Sanctuary that desperately need a foster home) through our Foster Care initiative._  
The initiative operates on a monitored loan basis which means we check in to see how they’re doing from time to time so we can make sure that they – and you – are happy. Due to our limited resources, our Foster Care Initiative operates in the Western Cape province only.

He looked at Elrond, shaking his head. “I don’t ….”

“Donkey Sanctuary,” Elrond said, tapping the paper again. “Don’t you remember when he got involved in that refuge for retired racehorses? And the dolphin rehab? And the…”

“Donkey sanctuary,” Erestor repeated. “Where do we find the address?” Elrond already had his phone out and was looking it up. Erestor ate the cake in three mouthfuls, gulped down the last of his coffee and got up. “Which way?” he asked.

Elrond got up as well. “Other end of town, about three blocks before we came in. That’s why none of us saw it. Where’s Gil? Oh, there. Come on, I think we’ve found him.”

Gil, who had just ordered his sandwich, shook his head determinedly. “I am eating first. If he’s here, he’s not going anywhere in the next half hour.”

“Then give me the damn car keys,” Erestor said, spotting and pocketing his phone which he had left lying on the table.

Annoyingly, Gil sat down. “Not till I’ve eaten. Grow up, we haven’t even paid the bill yet. Fifteen minutes won’t hurt. Where is he?”

Elrond put the paper down, folded for him to see, and sank back into his chair, motioning Erestor to sit too. Erestor glared at him but he knew when Gil was going to be stubborn at least as well as Elrond did. He sat down just as Elrond got up again. 

“I know how you work,” he said to Gil. “You’ll take your time now. I may as well get us another coffee while we wait.”

\-----o

It was a very small town and it took less than ten minutes to drive back to where they had turned in last night and a few blocks beyond. The houses thinned out, some of them even backing onto patches of farmland. Erestor had the pendant in his hand and was staring at the yellow stone, but the light grew neither stronger nor weaker. 

“Are you sure we’re right, El?” Gil asked. “I don’t see anything resembling a donkey around here.”

“Has to be out here somewhere. On the grid the town sort of tapers away and then you’re there.”

“Maybe we need to go back and ask someone. Go to one of the houses,” Erestor suggested.

“If the map says this is where we’ll find it, why the hell ask?” Gil gave him a look that was a combination of puzzled and unimpressed. “Look pretty stupid, wouldn’t we?”

“Do you think we could ask for directions, just once?”

“I suppose Glory always asked for directions?”

“Oh don’t be childish. No, of course not. Why do you think this pisses me off so much?”

“There,” Elrond said. “If you’d like to stop bickering. You sound like the twins when they were adolescents – hellish time to be a parent. On the left.”

Gil did a u-turn with a scream of tyres and pulled up in front of the gate Elrond was pointing at. “If it’s locked, I’m going over it,” Erestor said grimly. He had just about had enough.

Elrond was already out the car before they could start arguing again. He opened the gate after reading the notices on it, then closed it behind them after Gil drove through. “What do we do?” he asked, getting back in. “Just drive up and ask for the tall blond person? Do we know what name he’s using?”

“Probably Fin,” Erestor said. “That’s the least of our problems anyhow.”

A dirt track wound amongst trees and thick bushes that blocked out any view. The property was close to the mountain, which formed an attractive backdrop. Scents of sand and green things and animal dung came in through the open windows. They rounded a final turn and came out onto open land. A sandy, fenced pen stood off to one side, empty, while on the other side a herd of donkeys grazed on an expanse of lush green grass. There was a white house, low and long with a big front stoop and a tin roof, and a shed that stood open and out of which, carrying a bucket, came a tall blond figure, squinting against the dust cloud to see who had arrived.

Erestor was out of the car and running before Gil had come to a stop. He flung the pendant at Glorfindel, then ran at him and began beating him with his fists yelling. “Where were you? I emailed and you never answered! Where the fuck _were_ you?"

Glorfindel dropped the bucket and stood and took it for a moment, then he grabbed Erestor by the shoulders and held him off. "What in hell is _wrong_ with you? Stop that. Erestor, get a grip!" 

"We have to sail and you were gone and no one knew where to find you," Erestor shouted at him. Then he remembered where he was and said more quietly, "We have to sail." 

They stood quite still for a minute. Erestor felt stupid, useless tears welling hotly and tried to force them back. Glorfindel released his shoulders, hesitated, then wrapped his arms round him and held him. "It's okay," he said softly. "It'll be okay. I’m here, we’re all together. And I wouldn’t miss the look on your face for the world when you finally see Aman." 

\-----o 

They were the only ones staying at the guest house so it was almost like having a well-catered holiday home to themselves. Later that afternoon Gil swam in the pool, Elrond relaxed in the sun smoking and refused to join him, while Erestor and Glorfindel sat round the corner, out of sight but not earshot, and talked quietly. 

“Just didn’t see the point in getting a local network card,” Glorfindel was saying. “I only meant to stay a week or two. And then time just moved on and there were other things to see and do and I forgot. You know how it is?” 

“Bitter experience, yes,” Erestor said, though he smiled when he said it. “And people were phoning and emailing and texting and you had no thought to at least check your mail. Internet café, something?” 

Glorfindel shook his head and looked rueful. “I should have, shouldn’t I? I’m sorry, I know you were mad.” He had Galadriel’s pendant tucked in his pocket and took it out now to look at it. “This is disturbing, how does she do it?” 

“I don’t ask dumb questions like that.” Erestor leaned back, stretched his legs out, and sipped a very nice fruit cocktail. The guest house only supplied breakfast as a meal but there were snacks and drinks and if that wasn’t enough, there were several eateries down the road. “I don’t ever want to know how she does anything. Even Gildor doesn’t ask.” 

“What are you going to do now? I’ve promised to help at the donkey sanctuary for the summer. It’s a good place, they rescue working donkeys that have been ill-treated – overworked, beaten, ill -- they all have different personalities and stories. My favourite is one that grew up on a farm looking after the sheep and had never seen another donkey before…”

“Glory?” Erestor hated to spoil it. Now it no longer involved him on a personal level, he loved seeing the way Glorfindel could light up about his latest project. “You don’t have the summer to give. We have to sail in November.”

Glorfindel went still and sat with his rooibos tea cupped in both hands – he drunk it in the local way, black with lemon and a spoon of sugar, to the delight of the proprietor. Finally, he sighed and nodded. “I do hate to let them down,” he said in a more subdued voice. “I suppose there’s no help for it though. I’ll have to create a family emergency in Europe, won’t I?”

“That’d be nicer than most people will get. Gil says to think of it like dying,” Erestor said dryly. “I’m rehearsing for a production that’s set for the Christmas season, so imagine how I feel? And my understudy is an ass, cannot act to save his life.”

Glorfindel nodded. “It always goes like that. You’re all right about it though, yes? Not thrilled, of course, but – all right? Gil has a damn interesting family over there for you to meet.”

Erestor shuddered. “I try and not think about that. Even he isn’t sure how his father will react to him having a same sex partner.”

“It’ll be all right,” Glory said, reassuring as he had been in the field at the donkey sanctuary. “You’ll get to see your mum; she’s bound to have been reborn by now. Maybe even your dad? It should be great when it stops being strange.”

Gil came round the corner wearing shorts and no shirt, towelling his hair dry. He stopped beside Erestor, chin-length dark hair scattering drops of water that caught the sunlight like tiny diamonds. “You should go in, the water’s great. You coming back with us, Glory? Our hotel’s booked for a few more days still. Back in Cape Town, I mean.”

“He doesn’t want that hotel wasted. Ery’s making him pay for a suite.” Elrond trailed behind Gil. He wore sunglasses and moved with sleek grace – people sometimes mistook him for a rock star, he had that kind of air about him.

Glorfindel shook his head and laughed. “Yes, I can see that. No, I’ll stay a bit longer, find a way to get them to take someone else on to help with the monsters – they’re like big, not very bright dogs most of the time. And I’ll sort out a phone, I promise,” he added to Erestor. “See to it as soon as I can get away to Ceres – they have a cellphone shop there. You don’t want to stay on? It’s pretty here.”

Erestor moved up on the bench, making space for Gil who put a cool, still damp arm around him. “We have to be back in London in a few days, we have lives and I guess we need to try and act normal till the Thing happens. Though it’s very peaceful, and I love the mountains.”

“I can stay for a bit,” Elrond said unexpectedly. “There’s some loose ends I’d like to discretely tie up and I’ll need to track down my son, but I don’t mind spending some more time here. Plenty of little places to visit, some good scenery to photograph.”

Of course.

“Do you need any portraits of the donkeys?” Gil asked, deadpan. “El’s become quite the photographer.”

Erestor smacked him but without heat. “He takes great pictures. Can we at least stay till tomorrow? There’s a ghost tour – can you believe it, in such a small place? I want to do it.”

Gil laughed. “An elf doing a ghost tour. Don’t see why not. As long as we get to spend one last night back at the Grace, I’m good with it. Like you said, it’s only money. We can’t take it with us. Not even to Valinor.”

_London: 3rd November 2017_

"You can't take all that with you, that's never fitting into one bag." Gil stood with hands on hips, staring down at the stacked pile of clothes and personal effects on the floor that Erestor was still adding to. 

"You haven't seen me pack before?" Erestor asked grimly. "It'll all get in that backpack I just bought. They said one bag, they didn't specify a size or shape. Soft sides mean more can get crammed in, and it's not going through airport baggage handling, so it won't get thrown and split open."

Gil shook his head. "You like pushing envelopes, don't you?" He had a notebook and a file of papers which he had just put on the bed. He sat down and picked up the notebook, opening it.

Watching him, Erestor pushed hair out of his face with the back of his wrist. "And that? Working right up till the end, of course."

"Oh, I'm doing that so there's nothing obvious, plus it's not fair to leave a whole bunch of unfinished business for someone without any notes or guidance. And I spent months setting up that New York deal, I’ll be damned if I’m leaving it to implode. This though -- I'm parcelling out money to people and organisations. I don't need all that. My family’s disgustingly rich, we're not likely to starve over there."

"Isn't that going to be kind of obvious once we're gone? Like you knew you were about to vanish - which you then do."

Gil-galad smiled wryly. "I thought of that, and then I realised there was nothing anyone could do even if it does look suspicious. We'll be gone, they can speculate all they wish. It's not as though they can follow us. And I want to leave something good behind."

Erestor came and sat beside him, leaning against him. "Yes, you would. Organisations? You need to give some to the Karoo Donkey Sanctuary or Glory will never forgive you."

"Donkey Sanctuary?" Gil frowned and then his face cleared. "Oh yes, god, so much has happened I'd forgotten. Port Alfred. He's not still there, is he? Time's getting on, just over a week left."

"He's still out there, but El went back to get him, just in case he lost track of time. They're meeting up with Dan in Monte Carlo and travelling together."

"Dan's in Monte Carlo? Didn't he have a gambling problem?"

Erestor shrugged. He was a firm believer in Elladan’s survivability. "We all have some kind of problem. He's not great with money, no, and he probably maxed out credit cards which he knows he won't have to pay, but what can you do?"

"That's a form of fraud," Gil pointed out, starting to play with Erestor's hair. "We don't all have problems. I don't anyhow. I'm completely normal."

"Your aunt wouldn't agree. She'd point to me as an unhealthy preoccupation." This was no less than the truth and had actually happened.

"My aunt just likes to micro-manage and you’ve a mind of your own, that’s all,” Gil said with a snort. “She’ll get over it in time.”

“Even for an elf, that might be a really, really long wait,” Erestor said comfortably. He was getting used to being unsuitable.

Gil laughed and kissed him. This took a while and they finished up leaning back against the headboard and crushing the pillows.

"I've heard people say they'd do something like that if they were told they only had three months to live,” Erestor said. “Spend everything. Have a ball. Go out smiling."

"What would you spend your money on now, knowing you can't take whatever it is along?"

Erestor thought about it. "I don't know. Go for a really good dinner somewhere exceptional like the Fat Duck. Take in some theatre, but there's nothing outstanding on this week – wish I could have seen Cats again, I loved being in that. Listen to music - well, we're going to the opera tomorrow night so I'll hear the Magic Flute one last time. The only thing I really want is to be with you, and that doesn't cost anything. Maybe stressed nerves sometimes."

“Well, I searched South Africa for your lost ex, with Elrond in the back navigating.”

“Because you like Glory and you’re good to me,” Erestor agreed. “And it was just the Western Cape, not the whole country.”

“I like Glory and I love you. Love makes men do damn strange things sometimes.” 

“That’s why I don’t have to spend lots of money to be happy – I’m with you,” Erestor said, rubbing his cheek against Gil’s shoulder.

"Ha. Yes. You can even take me over the Sea with you." 

Erestor sighed. "Yes. Our next road trip. You, me, Glory, Elrond, Dan, Gildor. And your aunt and uncle. On a boat. For – how long do they say? Ten days?”

“Something like that.” Gil was quiet, petting Erestor’s hair. Erestor closed his eyes and leaned against him, enjoying it. “El for ten days. On a boat.”

“If it’s any help, he won’t have the camera this time and even if he did he could hardly ask them to stop while he took a few shots of the dolphins.”

“No.” Gil continued to worry at something. “He’ll have to give up smoking too.”

“I suppose so? That’s going to be a bitch for a lot of people. I’m glad I tossed it back in the 70s.”

“You’re not listening. Elrond. Boat. No cigarettes.”

Erestor thought about this, then realised what he was saying. “We couldn’t swim, could we? Or get our own boat?”

“I don’t think I’m competent to sail to Valinor,” Gil said. “I can see the last great road trip being very special and unique.”

“Elrond being sarcastic, Gildor being snide, Elladan being seasick...”

“Glory feeding the birds and the orcas and the seals...”

“On our way to find a safe new home, just like Glory’s donkeys,” Erestor said half laughing. 

“But together,” Gil reminded him. “And if the facilities aren’t a bit better than the donkeys have in Prince Albert, at least we’ll get to watch my aunt implode and everyone running for cover.”

They both smiled at the images. Erestor said, serious now, “We know some good people really, don’t we?”

“We know some very good people,” Gil agreed, resting his cheek against Erestor’s hair. “So good it almost makes the idea of ten days stuck on a crowded boat bearable.”

**Author's Note:**

> Beta: Red Lasbelin.Thanks for all you've done despite not being well and this being one of the more interesting months of a way too interesting year.  
> Inspiration: Binky  
> Artist: me, Kei  
> Art Beta: Red Lasbelin


End file.
